Early in the morning, the editorial office of Crimson Maple Literature was already buzzing with activity.
A group of editors gathered around their computers, checking the latest reader feedback and performance data for the publisher's serialized magazines.
The flagship magazine Crimson Maple itself was doing fine.
The novels serialized there had maintained stable results recently, so there was nothing particularly alarming.
What truly drew everyone's attention, however, were the numbers from Fleeting Blossoms, the publisher's second-tier but highly influential magazine.
In a sense, among the five major light novel publishers in the prefecture, aside from flagship magazines like Crimson Maple and Blue Sky, all other secondary magazines existed to cultivate reserve talent for the top tier.
Especially a magazine like Fleeting Blossoms, which enjoyed strong sales and wide influence. If an author could serialize there and achieve solid results, then any future submissions to Crimson Maple Literature would have a very high chance of being recommended for serialization in Crimson Maple itself.
The topic dominating discussion right now was the male high school novelist writing under the pen name "Shiori Takahashi."
"This guy is really a rookie?"
"Rookies really are monsters. With these numbers, Blue Spring Ride might actually take the top spot in Fleeting Blossoms."
"That's not so easy to say. Its rating is undeniably high, but in terms of raw vote counts, it still trails the top two."
"The novel ranked second this issue, Summer Fireworks, pulled in 4,236 votes yesterday alone. The first place novel, The Day of Farewell, had an even crazier 5,682 votes. The gap is still pretty obvious."
"But ratings represent word of mouth."
"As serialization continues, popularity will naturally grow. With its current momentum, there's actually a high chance it could eventually top both ratings and votes."
"Unfortunately, it looks like this novel is just a short work. The planned run is only around a dozen installments, meaning it'll finish in less than two months."
"To be honest, that's a very short time. For it to surpass Summer Fireworks and The Day of Farewell in popularity within that window is extremely difficult."
"You don't seriously think Blue Spring Ride will gain another thousand votes next issue and push Summer Fireworks out of second place, do you?"
"Only a dozen installments? That's a shame. Both Summer Fireworks and The Day of Farewell have been running for forty or fifty chapters already. Their fan bases are rock solid. The readership of Fleeting Blossoms is relatively stable, so when one novel gains votes, it's usually because loyal readers of other novels switch sides."
"If Blue Spring Ride ran longer, it might slowly pull fans away from those two. But if it ends after just a dozen chapters, that's another story entirely."
"Still, with its popularity and rating, the publisher will probably start preparing a tankōbon release soon. With that many chapters, it should be able to produce around three collected volumes."
"Popularity during magazine serialization is influenced by magazine circulation and how long the series runs. Tankōbon sales are a different matter altogether. Those are standalone books, and readers buy them with far fewer reservations. With a rating like Blue Spring Ride has, I think its tankōbon sales could be very impressive."
"In the prefecture alone, it might hit a total of 100,000 copies."
"Come on, be bolder than that. If they release tankōbon editions, I think it could break 150,000 copies."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Right now, its serialization performance is what really matters."
"As long as the later chapters don't collapse and its popularity stays steady, this high school rookie will have no qualification issues at all when it comes to serializing future works in Crimson Maple, provided the quality holds."
"Hey, why is everyone only talking about Blue Spring Ride? The other rookie, Airi, did pretty well too. Yesterday's Starlight scored 8.2 this issue, still holding fourth place in ratings. Its vote count climbed to 1,993, ranking fifth among the thirteen novels. That's honestly pretty insane as well. She's a newcomer too."
"When you put it that way, it's true. Two rookie monsters appeared at once. The big monster is Shiori, and the smaller one is Airi."
"I'm honestly jealous of Yukino. How does she have such ridiculous luck? She found two gems like this. With some nurturing, both of them might have a shot at serializing in Crimson Maple by the second half of the year."
Inside Crimson Maple Literature, there were many magazines and many editors. Yet most editors did not have even a single novel under their care that could make it into Crimson Maple.
Serialization slots were limited, and everyone was competing fiercely, all in hopes of spotting that one work that could climb into the flagship magazine.
If that happened, status within the company would follow, performance evaluations would soar, and bonuses would multiply. So when someone like Yukino signed two clearly talented rookies in succession, envy and jealousy were inevitable.
When Yukino arrived at work that day, she could naturally feel the subtle shift in the office atmosphere.
Of course, she worked as a novel editor at Crimson Maple Literature purely out of interest and passion for the industry. Salary and bonuses were never her main concern.
Still, if she could personally nurture a rookie author all the way to serialization in Crimson Maple, the sense of achievement would be immense.
After sending the second-issue performance data for Blue Spring Ride and Yesterday's Starlight to Haruto and Reina respectively, Yukino settled into her work.
"Hey, did you read it? Yesterday's Fleeting Blossoms. I swear, Blue Spring Ride fits my taste perfectly. Out of all thirteen novels, it's easily the best."
"I thought so too. Chapter two really hit me hard."
"I actually found Yesterday's Starlight more interesting."
"Oh please. I'm a diehard fan of The Day of Farewell. Don't praise other novels in front of me."
At school, Haruto heard girls chatting about Blue Spring Ride as soon as the day began.
As the author, he naturally paid close attention, but at the same time, he also caught snippets of the boys' conversations nearby.
"I seriously don't get what's so interesting about those love and feelings kind of girls' romance novels. Girls are obsessed with them."
"If we're talking about real peak fiction, it's got to be something like 'I Reincarnated Into Another World and the Demon King Turned Out to Be My Long-Lost Dad.' That's real manly harem fantasy."
"Harem? Please. If we're talking harem light novels, 'The Last Man Alive' is where it's at."
"Every other man in the world is dead, all the ugly women are gone too, and only beauties are left with the protagonist. That's what true wish fulfillment looks like."
"The author of that one has messed-up values. Isn't that just pure self-insert fantasy? How does something like that even get published?"
"Not only is it published, it's actually pretty popular nationwide. It sells in every prefecture, and the total sales aren't bad at all."
After listening for a while, Haruto shook his head.
The otaku industry in Japan was indeed thriving, but sometimes even he was left speechless by the kinds of themes that became popular.
He could not help thinking to himself.
'I wonder when I'll find some top-tier works from Shiori's memories. I'd really like to see what would happen if masterpieces from that parallel world were brought into this one. Would they fail to adapt, or would they reshape and lead the direction of our light novel culture? At the very least, seeing so many people praise those brainless isekai throwaway stories here really makes it hard to endure.'
Back when he was just a reader, Haruto had no choice but to accept reality.
Now that he had become a light novel author himself, he could not deny that he harbored a certain ambition.
Even if he was just one insignificant person, he still wanted to try. He wanted to see whether introducing truly excellent works from another world could, even slightly, change the direction of the industry here.
_______________________
[You can leave your power stones here.]
Support me at patreon.com/CulturedOne and read 50 Advanced Chapters